During the last months Mariana and I have participated in several meetings and workshops with Naisten Linja, presenting and socializing the results of the workshop. The ideas have been well received and we have gotten a lot of interesting and relevant feedback, all critical and constructive. We are happy to announce that in the short term Naisten Linja is working with partners to implement “Plan B” and “Free from stalking” concepts. Ideas and materials from the other concepts and the workshop in general will continue to be used to inspire and guide future service ideas.

The image above to help us keep in mind why this all is important and urgent

Plan B – “Well planned is half-done!” is a concept for women who are considering if they should leave their relationship because of abusive/violent experiences. In that kind of situation women face many barriers and there are normally a lot of different kind of fears and concerns in their mind: They may be afraid what their violent partnermight do or how they would survive financially. They may hope that the abuser will change or think that they have to hold the family together for the sake of children. They may also suffer low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, guilt and shame as a result of the abuse that undermine their confidence to leave.

Plan B aims to be a textbook type of service that helps a woman to clarify -for herself- what does it means to leave and what kind of upfront arrangements could be beneficial. The objective is to dispel fears and confusions and by that, make it easier to make the final decision. Plan B is planned to be part of the Naisten Linja website and it consists of self-evaluation to investigate the current situation, and questions and instructions to be prepared in case of leaving.

Vapaaksi vaanijasta offers concentrated info and practical instructions on how to recognize digital stalking and be protected from it. The concept is implemented as cards that can circulate on different platforms: they can be combined into an web-based information packet, distributed singly in social media as short bulletins, or used as a easy-to-browse protection manual on mobile application. The aim is to provide simple step-by-step instructions on how to maintain/regain one’s digital safety and stay protected from digital stalking also in the future.

Me in Mosaic (suom. “Me Mosaiikki”) is a visual peer collage. Individual survival stories open up for the reader interactively from small pieces of mosaic. The colors they have reveal the experienced phase of healing from violence – extending from recognition to reaction and to the further stages of early and late recovery. Out of numerous pieces stands out a beautiful piece of art and a manifest of multiple shared secrets. The visual peer collage unfolds the ultimate secret: you are not alone.

Polku is a personal emotional diary for women who have encountered violence or the threat of violence in their lives. As an application and browser based service, it’s targeted for women in all stages of their healing process, so that they can keep track of their emotional journey. The main purpose of Polku is to provide self support and help women to recognize their own situation. It is visual and designed to be fast, fun and easy to use. The Polku application could be publicly downloadable, hence lowering the threshold for diginatives to use Naisten Linja’s services.

Our afternoon started with a brief introduction to the workshop idea. Mariana showed to those present our objectives and examples of the things we did in 4 days (A copy of those slides can be downloaded here as PDF). This was followed by presentations of each individual concept by each participant of the ws. At the end we had a round of comments and general discussion that set each concept in context. We also discussed the future development possibilities and reflected on the many aspects that intertwine new digital technologies with violence against women. Many challenges ahead!

We will publish one post per each concept in the following days to document and make then accessible . For now a snippet of each of them:

Polku (Path)is a service that invites and supports women in keeping a diary of their daily emotions and feelings. The concept was presented through a mobile app. (Sonja Merilainen)

Sunnitelma B (Plan B) encourages and support the process of making a “Plan B” for leaving a conflicting situation (e.g. leaving a relationship). The concept was presented through an online interactive guide. (Pauliina Ikavalo)

Me Mosaiikki (Me in Mosaic) is a service that supports the creation of peer support through the visualization of women stories. The concept was presented through an interactive visual collage. (Riika Laajasalo)

Vapaaksi vaanijasta (Free from your stalker) is a service that offer info-packages and concrete advice in multiple mediums, to help young women deal with cyber stalking and digital privacy issues. The concept was presented through a set of cards/images to be spread around. (Juulia Jutilainen)

Pia gave each participant warm thanks and a “jaa salaaisuus” pin. Thanks!

Thank you all who attended our final presentation event at Aalto Service Factory the 27th. We want to specially thank Pia Oksanen and Kaisa Åberg from Naisten Linja for sharing with us their expertise, knowledge and commitment towards this difficult and important topic. The topic definitively brought synergy an intimacy to the work of our participants. Naisten Linja is doing important work and we are very inspired by it!

The audience was very attentive, made relevant and important remarks and encourage all to make the concepts real. It was very important for us to hear reactions, ideas and feedback from all of you! Kiitos, Gracias.

We are having the final presentation of concepts developed in the workshop Friday 26.2 at 2 PM in Aalto Service Factory. We would be very happy if some of you could join us to give feedback to the ideas, and why not to think with us how we could realize them!

Today we looked together at the ideas from the point of view of “possible customer journeys”, all of them we evaluated using a simple technique to structure group discussion called 6 thinking hats. Each of the ideas and its preliminary evaluation are condensed in this PDF presentation.

Kaisa and Seija worked together with us to develop the ideas furhter

In the afternoon Kaisa and Seija (From Naisten Linja) came to work with us on some of the ideas and gave us feedback and suggestions for directions. One of our aims was to understand the feasibility of the concept and how they sit in the general plans of NL. We had slightly refined the ideas after the morning discussion to crystallize them more as concepts in this PDF document.

Noora sharing points of the possibilities of working with Third Sector organizations

Noora Jokinen gave a lecture about how it is to work for third sector organizations, especially in Finland. She talked about organization culture and the challenges that these organizations are facing in Finland, for example to recruit new members, to be flexible and keep an activist spirit and to appropriate new media for more than campaigning. Together with Noora we also had a look at some of the ideas we developed during the first afternoon, this PDF gives an overview of the first “seed concepts”.

Here you can download the PDF slides of the second day, that Mariana and Andrea used to introduced the basic vocabulary and the 6 hats exercise.

The Third sector can be more, as it is already a big actor providing important services said Noora.

In the afternoon we did a mapping of “user experience journeys” in which each of the participants analyzed one of the services that NL provides using the model that Lucy Kimbell suggests in the Service Innovation handbook. The map template we use is this.

In the case of telephone support service, we were discussing about the expectations of the women calling, how could the possibilities of the service be made more visible? We noticed the lack of English version and participants suggests that the message could be more welcoming, starting for example with: “Good that you called!…”. We thought that in general there is room for improvement in the first encounter with this service. In the Q&A service, we thought that women consulting this service might not know what to expect from the process, or what to do after receiving the answers. Maybe there could be examples? or slightly different path if you are seeking for information or advice? In general it felt a little bit daunting to have to create a password first. In the case of online group support sessions there was not a lot of information of what this actually mean, you do not know what happens in the group or how it “looks” like. It gives the impression that this service is for women that face bigger threads. In general there was not a clear picture of all the possible groups and forums available. In “tell your own story” there is a basic form to be filled and people can contribute with their own stories, however the navigation of this section could be improved. It really showed that it was planned more as a campaign and actual stories are somewhere else in the site. Women using this service might not know what happens next when they send the story and how the story could/would be used in the future. Participants in the workshop suggest that when a woman writes her story it does not disappear and she gets some feedback. She might be willing to know when someone read it, and receive some comments, or feedback on her story. She might be interested in getting to know in which other context or forums her story is being used.